Toxic mother punishing me via my son

[Peaceloveandhobnobs]

I've had a very difficult relationship with my mother since I was a child, but it has improved since I moved away and we only see each other two or three times a year. Now that I have my son, I see her slightly more regularly - about every six-eight weeks. We spend a week together and I tread on eggshells ensuring she feels welcome and happy, and then she goes home and we go back to texting and very occasional banal phone calls.
Today was our last day together of her current visit, and she clearly had the hump with me over something, but I had no idea what. She barely responded to things I said, which always makes me feel silly, as though what I have to say isn't worth responding to, so I shouldn't say anything (I have personality disorders which manifest in this sort of black and white thinking), but she also refused to hold my son, which is very unusual as she usually doesn't want to give him back (she doesn't let me push the pram when we go out together etc - I tolerate this because I know it's only for a few days, and then he's "mine" again). I'm concerned that she's going to affect his mental health the way she has mine by using him in her obvious punishment of me. I have worked very hard at my recovery, as being stable was a pre-requisite to my having a baby. It's difficult, but I can use mindfulness to get past her toxicity and say "sod her" when I wave goodbye, but it's taken me a long time and I don't want my son to have to feel the way I did as a child, afraid of upsetting her and walking on eggshells in her presence. I've gone NC with her in the past for my own sanity, but it never lasts long, for the benefit of my siblings.
How do I protect my son's feelings in the future but stay civil with my mother? He is only a baby at the moment but won't be oblivious forever, and he already picks up on my emotions.
I'm so angry with her for this.

Your main priority here apart from your own self is your son.

Increasing contact as you did has not worked out and you and your son are both being profoundly affected. He is like a sponge and is learning from you and your reactions.

You simply cannot and must no longer expose your son, your most precious of resources, to her poison any longer. She has affected your mental health to its detriment and she will behave very similarly around and to your son as well. Your own boundaries anyway are far too low and these need to be raised a lot higher now.

You say that you've gone NC in the past but it never lasts long for the benefit of your siblings. Where are they in all this, they are acting in their own interests and certainly not in yours. They are likely happy that you are solely copping your mother's toxic fallout rather than they, they have certainly not acted in your best interests here. They may also have acted as "flying monkeys" by putting pressure on you to at all resume a relationship with your mother in the first place.

You can and should go no contact again. Your mental health will continue to be affected by her otherwise and she will use your son to get back at you as well. This is not the legacy you want to be leaving your son.

I would also suggest you post on the "we took you to Stately Homes" thread as well.

Everything Attila said.

My aunt is like your mother. One of my cousins does not have DC and is slowly breaking free. Another has two DS and has never believed her half sister - until recently when my aunt started comparing her DS1 and DS2, to DS1's detriment - 'he's so rough, he never sits still' - well, he's a 5yo boy, auntie dearest... It wasn't until her DS1 asker her why granny didn't like him any more that she started listening. Don't wait that long.

A week is a LONG time to spend with a parent, even one with whom you have a good relationship.

'How do I protect my son's feelings in the future but stay civil with my mother?'

• Well, you can't. You know that only too well from the way you were treated - her own child. Now you've had an early warning that she hasn't changed - she'll fuck with your child's heart as she fucked with yours.

So you can't have both. You choose which is more important to you.

I can't imagine why you've let her into your child's life at all, to be honest.

Agree with Yarp. I have a good relationship with my parents and even so, I don't stay with them or have them staying with me for a week or I'd be climbing the walls. If you're going to keep up any contact at all I would make it shorter in duration. For the moment I would just go quiet and think over your future strategy for protecting yourself and your son. You don't have to make an immediate decision, but I wouldn't go running to contact her, ask if everything's ok and so on.

Thank you all for replying already! I have seen the stately homes threads before but wasn't sure it fitted my situation, though after having read the current one it probably does.

I think what I've learnt from reading your responses is that I've been so concerned with not becoming my mother, and treating him in the way I was treated, I've forgotten that she's there anyway.

I'm going through a bad patch at the moment so I think today has hit me harder than I usually would let it, but you are right that I need to be stronger and fight harder for my son. I need to stop rolling over and letting her take over, just to please her. I think I was more in control this visit than last time. She was visibly annoyed that he was comforted by me when he was crying in her arms, but I took him away anyway, because he really is much more important to me than she is.

I won't be contacting her myself (I generally don't) - after times like today, she usually leaves it a few days and then texts me acting as though nothing has happened, and will be angry if I bring it up.

My siblings certainly haven't been affected by her in the same way that I have, but that isn't to say that they have easy relationships with her themselves. To be honest, it is rather a horrible survival game where each of us is glad it's someone else getting it in the neck and not ourselves this time. My mother plays us off against each other, though we get on well when she isn't around.

I think I will definitely suggest a shorter visit next time (if there is one). I need to give myself a slap and put my son's future mental health above my own need to appease her.

Thank you for letting me sound off and for your advice.

I should say she TRIES to play us off against each other - I try my best not to bite, as I have no desire to bitch about my siblings behind their backs, just as I hope they feel about me!

If you must have face-to-face contact make it a day out or something. This is not the sort of person you want hanging around your home for whole weeks at a time causing damage to you both.

For myself, I'd be making plans to phase her out completely if I couldn't engineer absolutely no contact immediately.

Bitter I think days out is a good idea. Neutral territory etc.